At the time of the spinoff, the company said it expected annual sales without the sold chains to fall from $36.5 billion to $17 billion.

Of the 1,100 jobs eliminated, 600 were in the company’s Eden Prairie headquarters.

Supervalu brought in Sam Duncan as CEO. The former OfficeMax CEO is known as a turnaround guru and so far has impressed investors. Supervalu stock has increased in value from $3.47 a share when he took over to $6.19 in mid-December.

The leaner company also posted solid earnings in the past two quarters.

Chief Financial Officer Bruce Besanko told investors in October that the company was headed in the right direction.

Caribou’s national footprint slashed

When a German private equity group bought Caribou Coffee Co. Inc. last December, it wasn’t immediately clear what would become of the Minnesota-born coffee business.

Caribou’s new owner, the Joh. A. Benckiser Group, paid $340 million for the company. Earlier in the year, it bought Peet’s for $1 billion.

Benckiser is building brands, but in separate regions. The 88 flipped stores were in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Illinois, eastern Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. Caribou still has 468 stores, 200 of them franchised, in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, western Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina and Denver.

Hormel buys Skippy peanut butter

Hormel Foods Corp., best known for its meat products, got into a different form of protein in January, buying the Skippy brand from Unilever for $700 million.

The deal is easily the largest in Austin, Minn.-based Hormel history and more than twice that of the $334 million Turkey Store acquisition a decade ago.

The acquisition appears to have paid off, as the company reported a record-setting fourth quarter in November, due in large part to revenue from Skippy sales.

In a recent interview with MSPBJ, Hormel Vice President of Research and Development Kevin Myers said the company is working on new Skippy products that take the peanut butter “out of the jar.”

Hormel’s Spam has been a popular international seller, and Skippy is the largest peanut butter in China.

“They fit well together with consumers needs of having convenient products that are iconic. We can sell [them] together,” Myers said.

Craft beer surges

The Twin Cities craft beer movement started a few years ago, but 2013 became the year when things really took off.

Nearly every existing brewery expanded, and at least a dozen new taprooms have opened or will open soon.

Surly Brewing Co. broke ground in October on a $20 million “destination brewery” in the Prospect Park neighborhood.

Summit Brewing Co. finished a $7 million expansion and purchased a $2.3 million property adjacent to its St. Paul brewery that will be used for canning.

Fulton Brewing Co. signed a lease for a 51,000-square-foot building in Northeast Minneapolis that will complement its North Loop taproom.

Indeed Brewing Co. began a series of expansions that will ramp up production from its Northeast Minneapolis taproom, and Boom Island Brewing Co. moved into a larger building to expand brewing in North Minneapolis.

Those expansions are on top of a wave of new breweries.

St. Paul got into the action with new breweries from Bang Brewing Co., Urban Growler and Burning Brothers Brewing. 612Brew and Sociable Cider Werks opened in Northeast Minneapolis. Several more have opened in the suburbs.

Craft brewers say there’s plenty of market demand for the sector to grow.

Microdistilleries try to ride alcohol wave

After the state reduced its licensing fee, microdistilleries began springing up all across Minnesota in 2013 as entrepreneurs count on consumers’ love for craft beer extending to spirits.

At least nine distilleries have opened or plan to open in 2014. They’re in the metro area and in rural Minnesota, and their founders believe there’s a thirst for small-batch whiskey, vodka and gin.

The Surly bill that legalized beer taprooms in 2011 had a small provision that reduced the distillery licensing fee from $30,000 annually to $1,100.

But the people behind the craft-distilling movement say more state law changes are needed. Distillers aren’t allowed to sell bottles, cocktails or shots from their facilities. All they can do is give out three small samples to visitors.

Panther Distillery of Osakis, Far North Spirits of Skane Township and Norsemen Distillery of Minneapolis are already making products.

Look for these newcomers in 2014: Vikre Distillery of Duluth, Bent Brewstillery of Roseville, 11 Wells of St. Paul, Du Nord Craft Spirits of Minneapolis, Lost Falls Distillery of Minneapolis and Loon Liquors of Northfield.